Page 114 of Study Buddies

Tori snapped her fingers, no doubt having noticed where my attention went. “What’s my fault?”

“It’s your fault we got here early. It was the sight of you in that sexy dress—it got my blood pumping harder, and I drove too fast.”

She smirked, but I could tell she was pleased as well. “So what you’re saying is the sight of a woman in a pretty dress makes you come too fast?”

I threw back my head and laughed. She was so fucking fun. Then I rested my palms on the stone on either side of her, leaning in close. “There’s only one way to find out.”

She put her hand on my chest, pushing me back—and didn’t seem in much of a hurry to break the contact.

Good.

“How long do we have to wait?” she asked finally.

This time, I checked my watch. “About six minutes now.”

“In that case, can I use three of them?”

My head cocked to the side as I stared at her. “Do you need a restroom or something?”

She laughed. “No, just kind of a… a time-out. Just three minutes. Then we can get back to our date.”

Now I was intrigued—and I saw an opportunity. “Fair enough—if I get the other three minutes.”

“What for?” She was suspicious—as she should be.

“You’ll see.”

She pouted, and I wanted to bite her lower lip. “Now you’re keeping secrets about your secrets. But okay, it’s a deal. The time-out starts now.”

“All right.” I cocked an eyebrow at her, curious.

“You know how in the truck you said that this night was about us and how you didn’t want to talk about Lucas?”

“That still seems like good advice to me,” I said.

“Not during a time-out.” She was cute when she lectured me. “So can you please tell me—I’ve been dying to know… what the hell happened last night when you called a homeowner’s meeting and dragged Lucas into the backroom of the basement?”

I laughed, long and hard. She was curious about everything, and that alone was intriguing even if she hadn’t been drop dead gorgeous.

But should I tell her? It was breaking the bro code, but I sure as fuck didn’t owe Lucas anything.

She sensed me debating. “Please?”

Shit, I liked hearing that word from her. She had no idea of the ways I was going to make her beg someday soon.

“All right.” I glanced away from her for a moment because I needed to gather my thoughts. When I looked at her, all the blood in my body rushed to the small head, not the big one. “Okay, so you insisted that Lucas should move back into his room, and we were talking about where you could sleep, and you suggested you could share a bed with Jayden.”

Tori frowned. “Yes, I remember. And?”

“And Lucas agreed, even though that was clearly the last fucking thing he wanted.”

Her frown deepened. “What do you mean?”

I shook my head, not sure I had the language skills to explain the fucked-up way my stepbrother viewed things sometimes. “I knew that wasn’t what he wanted, so I marched him into the backroom and asked him why the fuck he was pushing the girl he liked into his best friend’s bed.”

She cocked her head to the side. “That’s not exactly what happened…” But I could see it on her face. She knew Lucas liked her. “What did he say?”

I rolled my eyes. “The usual. He sputtered and denied it. But I—unfortunately—have known him for five years, and I figured it out.”

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